She was looking thinner since he’d arrived here, Lane thought grimly.

“’Mornin’,” Lane said as he went over and clapped palms with Ramsey.

“You, too.”

“There room for a third?”

“Always.” Miss Aurora pushed an empty mug to him and got up to snag the coffeepot from its machine. “And I’ll be leaving you two.”

“Stay,” Lane said as he sat down. “Please.”

God, he’d forgotten how big Ramsey was. Lane was a healthy six two, six three. But as he took the stool next to the deputy, he felt like a Barbie doll.

“So the autopsy report.” Mitch glanced over. “The finger is your father’s. Definitely. There were cut marks on the remains that matched the scoring on the bone of what was found in your front yard.”

“He was murdered, then.” Lane nodded a thanks at the coffee that was poured in front of him. “’Cuz you don’t do that to yourself.”

“Were you aware that your father was sick?”

“In the head? Yes, very.”

“He had lung cancer.”

Lane slowly lowered his mug. “I’m sorry?”

“Your father was suffering from an advanced lung cancer that had metastasized to his brain. The coroner said he had another six months at the most—and very soon it was going to affect his balance and motor skills to an extent that he wouldn’t have been able to hide it from others.”

“Those cigarettes.” He looked at Miss Aurora. “All those fucking cigarettes.”

“Watch your mouth,” she said. “But I always wanted him to stop. I didn’t volunteer for my cancer. I don’t know why anyone would want this disease.”

Glancing over at Ramsey, Lane asked, “Was it possible that he didn’t know? And how long might he have had it?”

Not that his father would have dropped a dime to Lane with a health report or anything. Hell, knowing the great William Baldwine, the man might well have believed he could simply will the stuff into remission.

“I asked the coroner that myself.” Ramsey shook his head. “He said that your father most likely would have been symptomatic. Shortness of breath. Headaches. Dizziness. His remains did not indicate any surgery had been performed and there wasn’t a chest port or anything—but that didn’t mean he wasn’t on chemo or hadn’t had radiation. Tissue samples have been sent off, and a toxicology report ordered—although the results of all that will take some time to come in.”

Lane rubbed his head. “So then he really could have killed himself. If he knew he was going to die, and he didn’t want to suffer, he could have jumped off that bridge.”

Except what about the finger? That ring? The fact that, of all the acres that made up the estate, of all the places hidden and obvious, the thing had been buried right beneath his mother’s window?

“Or your father could have been thrown off,” the deputy suggested. “Just because the man was sick doesn’t mean someone couldn’t have murdered him—and water was found in the lungs, which proves that he was alive and took at least one deep breath after he hit the river.” Ramsey glanced at Miss Aurora. “Ma’am, I’m sorry to be speaking about this in such graphic terms.”

Lane’s momma just shrugged. “It is what it is.”

Lane looked at Miss Aurora. “I was up all the time in New York. Did you notice anything … different about him?”

Although whatever his condition, he’d still had a sex drive. At least according to Chantal and that baby she was carrying.

His momma shook her head. “I didn’t pick up on anything unusual. He was gone a lot the last couple of months, but that was always true. And you know, he kept to himself. He was up and out of this house to the business center first thing in the morning, and a lot of the time, he was late getting home. My rooms face the garages so I’d see his chauffeur finally parking his car at midnight, one in the morning, or catch him walking back here from his office. So I don’t know.”

Ramsey spoke up. “With your family’s money and connections, he could have gone anywhere in the States for treatment.”

“What does homicide think?” Lane asked.

Ramsey shook his head back and forth. “They’re leaning toward foul play. That finger is the key. It changes everything.”

Lane stayed for a little while longer and chatted with them. Then he excused himself of their company, put his mug in the sink, and headed up the staff stairs to the second floor. Miss Aurora and Ramsey had known each other since the deputy had been in diapers, and he often visited her when he was off duty before. So they could be there for a while yet.

Cancer.

So his father had been busy killing himself with tobacco … until someone had decided to speed up the process and put PAID on a toe tag.

Unbelievable.

As usual, during the morning hours after the family were up and out of their bedrooms, the staff worked in this part of the house, and he could smell the cleaning supplies for the toilets and the showers and the windows, the artificial citrus and vaguely mint-like scents making his nose itch.

Proceeding down to his father’s room, it felt wrong not to knock before Lane opened the door—even though the man was dead. And stepping inside the quiet, dark interior of the masculine room was an all-wrong that made him look over his shoulder for no good reason.

There were few personal effects out on the bureau tops and the bedside tables, everything in the suite a consciously arranged and maintained stage set that announced “A Rich and Powerful Man Lays His Head Here at Night”: from the monogrammed bedcovers and monogrammed pillows, to the leather-bound books and the Oriental rugs, to the banks of windows that were currently hidden behind heavy silk curtains, you could have been at the Ritz-Carlton in New York or a country seat in England or a castle in Italy.

The bathroom was floor-to-ceiling old-fashioned marble and molding mixed with new plumbing, the fancy glassed-in shower enclosure taking up half the room. Lane paused as he saw his father’s monogrammed robe hanging on a brass hook. And then there was the shaving kit with its gold-handled brush and its straight-edge razor. The strip of leather to hone the silver blade. The sterling cup for water. The toothbrush.

There were two gold sinks separated by a mile of marble counter-top, but it wasn’t as if his mother had ever used the vacant one. And over the expanse was a mirror with gold sconces set into its reflective panels.